clambered over to face the stream of traffic from the opposite direction. A small dark skinned boy waited alone, lost, unable to climb the barrier.
It was the only way to reach the shantytown on the other side of the autoroute. Now and then he caught a flashing glance of the miserable huts, mere shelters, built of almost any available material; rusty corrugated steel sheets, old wood from pallets, packing cases and even cardboard. The doors consisted of old blankets draped across the openings. There were carcasses of old cars, washing machines, fridges and other household appliances. A satellite panel stood incongruously on the roof of one of the huts.
The driver observed Ennis in his rear view mirror. “They arrive every day, from the north by train, from Africa by boat. We need money to build houses.” He shrugged as a sign of hopelessness. “They wanted independence, now it’s here. Look at it!” He accelerated to even greater speed as if to escape the landscape of misery.
Ennis had seen such scenes many times before, but he could not help being appalled by the transformation of Algharb from the prosperous land he had known as a student.
The city centre was quite a good distance from the airport and in spite of the light traffic it was almost forty minutes later when the taxi pulled into the forecourt of the hotel.
“Here you are my friend, that’s one hundred and seventy.”
Ennis gave him a two hundred note. The driver dug deep into his pockets with a semblance of searching for the change.
“Keep the change.”
“Thank you my friend, welcome to our country. Allah be with you! Here’s my card, if you need a taxi.... just call me on my phone.”
“Thanks, I’ll do that, bye!”
“Inshallah!”
The hotel was located in the quarter known as the Old Port; it overlooked the harbour with the boats moored at the nearby quay. The view was splendid. The hotel was surrounded by gardens, which were well maintained, it had been one of the best hotels in the city. Inside it was different, it was a little run down with an air of seediness, there had been an evident lack of maintenance and investment. It was no longer the five star establishment indicated in the brochures.
He checked in at the reception desk and filled in the obligatory registration card with his personal details and passport number, which would be transmitted to the police immediately over the net.
The bellboy, who appeared to be not more than fifteen years old, took his bags and pointed the way towards the lifts.
“Where are you from my friend?” said the boy without real interest, using the familiar form of tu.
“I’m from Boston.”
“Boston?”
“Yes, Boston in the USA,” Ennis reaffirmed.
The boy whistled with astonishment.
They arrived at the room door on the fourth floor, which the boy opened with the plastic key card and then carried the bags inside.
“Gimme a dollar my friend” he said in English with a large grin of pleasure and satisfaction at having the rare opportunity to use his few words of English.
Ennis looked in his wallet, selected a five-dollar bill and handed it to the boy, who had just started to show him the appointments of the room.
“Here’s your TS vision!” he said pointing the remote control at a plastic panel that rose with a soft swish exposing a life size mural screen, which lit up. In one corner was an information window with a menu, in the centre screen an attractive girl stood before them and welcomed John Ennis with a smile.
“Nice,” the bellboy said with a sly smile. He zapped again and the girl disappeared giving way to a mosaic of entertainment channels. “We have all the interactive channels you want, even the French ones!”
Ennis thanked him and the boy left rubbing the five-dollar bill between his fingers with an evident satisfaction.
The bathroom was acceptable, nothing more, hot and cold water ran from the taps and a pile of towels was placed to one side of the washbasin, a row of toilette articles were aligned on the other side. It was clean and quite an improvement compared to Algiers, though it was a little worn and the style rather dated.
He looked at the folder on the writing table; there was a description of the hotel services. It was printed in two languages, French and Arabic. The French was strange, the spelling phonetic, the style colloquial and at worst illiterate, using a very familiar tone with the second person singular form of tu.
He opened his Satpac and switched it on and selected his personal securised uplink. His virtual assistant appeared and informed him with a regretful smile that the link was unavailable at that moment, suggesting that he try a connection via terrestrial cable, alternatively she could inform him later when a link became available.
Shit! Ennis thought, even in Algiers there were few problems with satellite connections. Perhaps he could connect using the hotel links. He glanced around for a connector, there were none. He zapped the TS to the hotel information desk. After a few moments a flustered girl appeared on the TS.
“Good evening Monsieur Ennis, can I help you,” she said with a sour smile.
“Yes, I’d like a secure uplink to a Boston site.”
“Boston? What address?
He gave her the address name and she informed him she would come back in a moment.
He swore silently. They were twenty years behind the times.
The girl from the information desk reappeared back on the TS mural.
“We don’t have a secure uplink to the USA at the moment, there’s a technical problem, the system is down.”
“What!”
He saw her face stiffen.
“I’m sorry, okay, when do you think it will be up again?”
“Maybe a couple of hours.”
“Two hours!”
He realised it was no use insisting.
“Yes, we have to go through Algharb Telecoms.”
"Okay, I’ll try later.”
He was surprised. In the Caliphate there had been little difficulty to communicate with the USA by an uplink, normally Algharb should have been more open. It was obviously not the case.
He looked at the mini-bar then opened it. It was full, cold beer and an array of other drinks. Splendid he thought, it was a great improvement after Algiers and the ACA in-flight service, which were totally dry; alcohol was forbidden throughout the Caliphate. It was more than four weeks since he had drunk a good cold beer; the last was at London, Heathrow, just before his departure. After that it had been as dry as the Sahara, alcohol was even off the drinks list on the Anglia National flight to Cairo in compliance with Caliphate regulations concerning all arriving flights.
o0o
Ennis had agreed to the assignment for several reasons, the most important to him was the research for his new book on European-Arab relations in the third millennium and especially those with the Caliphate of Misr-Maghrib. After that came his bank account and the numerous bills to be paid, those would be settled by his work for the new series being prepared for Global Focus Report. Then there was the series of essays for the Washington based International Herald Post. They required an on-the-spot account, necessary for his reputation as one of their specialist correspondents in European and Mediterranean Affairs.
In truth, from the outset he had little enthusiasm for passing a whole month in the Caliphate, his real personal and professional interest lay in the Turkish Federation of the Levant rather than North Africa. He had let himself be pressurised by Steiner of Global Focus, who had convinced him that his presence in the Caliphate was necessary; it would give the show greater credibility and a broader view of the more recent developments in the region. Steiner was not a believer in second hand reporting or analysis by desk bound specialists.
The authorities of the Caliphate of Misr-Maghrib had only just started to ease restrictions on foreign journalists. Ennis, a fluent Arabic speaker, had gained a certain respect in the region for his unbiased reporting, which together with the reputation of the serious International Herald Post
explained why he was one of the very first American journalists admitted to visit the Caliphate. His visit was carefully supervised in every detail by the Ministry of Information in the belief that his analysis and observations could be influenced to project a positive image.
The events that had provoked the sudden interest of the US media in the Caliphate had been the dramatic forceful expulsion of Muslims from Spain. Fear of the growing Arab population in their country and the endless conflict with the Caliphate over its last Moroccan territories had driven the Spanish government to deport all North Africans to its enclaves in North Africa, Ceuta and Melillia, which were then ceded to the Caliphate as a poisoned gift.
o0o
Ennis had been born in London, but looking back he sometimes had the impression he had spent a large part of his childhood shuttling backwards and forwards between France and England, when his father’s business brought him to Paris. It was normal he grew up bilingual, enjoying his frequent trips to Paris, a kind of escapism that made him a little different from his classmates. Later when his father’s work brought him further abroad, he followed from time to time for vacations, developing a fascination for foreign languages and strange places.
His father’s travels in the Near and Middle East with his endless stories of travels in Israel and Syria drew Ennis to the Orient. He was twenty when he made his first visits to the Levant, first to Istanbul and then Cairo. It was then he decided his future would be in journalism and languages.
He spent a summer